Byrne: ‘Level of competition’ reason for Ags to stay put

COLLEGE STATION — When I heard Texas A&M athletic director Bill Byrne was going to be the guest on the appropriately-named “Aggie Hour” on Monday night, me and my ol’ Olympus recorder were all ears.

Byrne, 65, didn’t disappoint – especially when it came to expanding upon why the Aggies chose to sit tight this summer when perhaps presented with the opportunity to move to the mighty Southeastern Conference.

“I was concerned with changing conferences that we may not be ready for the level of competition if we decided to leave,” Byrne told host Dave South on the weekly show that’s part of the Aggie Radio Network. “I was very concerned about trying to take things slowly, and not rush.”

Byrne, who arrived at A&M in late 2002, cited the Aggies’ conference shift in 1996 as reason for pause concerning the SEC in particular.

“If we looked at where we stacked up financially in the Pac 10 conference, we were about third,” Byrne said of annual athletic budgets. “If we looked at where we stacked up in the Southeastern Conference, we were eighth out of 12. We didn’t rank very well.

“My big concern was that when Texas A&M made the move from the Southwest Conference to the Big 12 conference (in ’96), they were not ready for the level of competition that was out there.”

Byrne continued to South, “(A&M) had not made the investment in facilities, staff or salaries – all the things you need to build a great program. And you saw the results of that. We had a good football team in 1998, then we had problems.

“We had terrible basketball (teams). … We had significant issues in track and field. We had problems with most of our sports because we were not ready for the level of competition.”

The Big 12 survived this summer, sort of, minus Nebraska and Colorado, and with the promise of greater riches for the remaining schools. We’ll see what happens on that front.

Admittedly, I caught SEC fever in June, when it appeared the Aggies were headed east, and that’s why I tend to take a contrarian view to Byrne’s reasoning for staying put.

First off, football won the Big 12 South in 1997 and then the Big 12 title in 1998. Baseball, soccer, men’s tennis, men’s outdoor track and women’s golf all won Big 12 titles in the pre-Byrne era (and multiple titles in the first three sports).

I don’t recall A&M being noncompetitive in the Big 12 overall at any point – and I’ve been there covering the Ags for the most part since that first Big 12 softball tournament in Oklahoma City in the spring of ’96. Byrne’s point is taken on A&M hoops, though, wow, they were bad – men, women, it didn’t matter. Byrne, who’s done plenty of under-appreciated good for the athletic department, helped remedy that with three great hires.

Getting us back to the SEC (Byrne said the Pac-10 was too far for A&M athletes to travel, and he’s absolutely right on that front). Of the major sports, A&M would be fine in the SEC in basketball and baseball, and what do the Aggies have to lose in football? It’s not like A&M, which opens its season on Saturday against Stephen F. Austin State (see video above), has competed of late for Big 12 titles in the granddaddy of the sports.

One – that one being me – could argue A&M’s football recruiting would pick up steam in a hurry with the promise to Houston, Dallas and San Antonio recruits that they would play in the nation’s best football conference without leaving the state. Ergo, A&M within just a few years would be competing quite nicely in football in the SEC.

Also, the interest in ticket sales and TV games would be at an all-time high for Aggies football (imagine Alabama, Tennessee and Florida, among others, at Kyle Field), leading back to one of Byrne’s true loves in his business: mo’ money.

“I know I get a lot of comments about being interested in money, and I am,” Byrne, the Nebraska AD in the early years of the Big 12, told South. “It’s right up there with oxygen as far as running a good athletic program.”

We’ll have more of Byrne’s forthright interview on a handful of subjects with South in the coming days on this blog.

Finally, this on the realignment front from Byrne: “We had a lot of pressure to make decisions in a hurry. I’m glad that our regents and president (R. Bowen) Loftin decided to take our time. I just think we are in the best place we can be right now.”